Yeah, it’s one of those situations where there’s just enough “there” there (regarding the Azov battalion) that the pro-Russian narrative can run with it and try to paint the invasion as legitimate. There are some sketchy realities surrounding Azov, but as mentioned above they’re a relatively small faction and the notion of using them as a pretense for full-scale invasion of a country of 44 million is hilarious on its face.
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I've been looking at some Russian youtubers lately. It's pretty interesting, gives you some idea of what the situation looks like to people in very practical ways.
Here's one guy who's left Russia for Georgia. Says there's been 30,000 Russian arriving to the country in the last weeks, which is insane and sounds like a situation that will quickly become unsustainable for Georgia. For example rents are skyrocketing with the sudden peak in demand.
(Apparently Georgia, quite surprisingly to me considering their recent history, allows Russian citizens to stay in the country for a year without a visa.)
Here's a simple video of someone comparing grocery prices before and after sanctions.
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Israels iron dome is ok(just ok) for rudimental ground based missiles from Hamas but would have zero effect against air-launched missiles and supersonic cruise missiles.
Hopefully Ukraine gets it plus a bunch of phalanx cannons to shoot down the rockets, shells and bombs flattening cities.
From today:
During a virtual address to the Israeli parliament, Zelensky questioned Israel’s reluctance to sell its Iron Dome missile defence system to Ukraine.
“The people of Israel, you saw how Russian rockets hit Babi Yar. You know what this place means, where the victims of the Holocaust are buried,” he said.
“Everybody knows that your missile defence systems are the best… and that you can definitely help our people, save the lives of Ukrainians, of Ukrainian Jews.”
10 million people whose lives are wrecked by Russia. They need to pay trillions in reparations for what they have done.
Can’t wait for the day Putin is dead.
Sure, I'll play the bad guy here. But trillions in reparations is not going to happen, not with a nuclear super power. First of all, then there's no reason for Russia to relent or negotiate, because they'd be facing economic death. Second of all because lets say that you do put pretty much a permanent economy crushing series of reparations on Russia and Putin is deposed, what comes after him will likely be far more because the russian people will be desperate and angry. So you'll literally get a North Korea x 5000 that's either selling advanced nuclear technology, or worse.
There's a hard line that you can take that will just further destabilize that region of the world and lead to a nuclear barbaric state, and will probably just lead to a more punitive war against Ukraine. If we want that killing to end, its likely that there has to be a way out for Russia as well.
I do believe that the international courts do need to be convened but its unlikely that trial goes ahead.
On top of that one of the conditions that Russia has in ending the war is a phased ending of sanctions in exchange for a good faith ceasefire and withdrawal by Russia.
We don't want to recreate the rise of facism in Germany after WW1.
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Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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I kind of agree with captain in a way. Though I think some financial leverage could help with restitutions. For example could sanctions carry a portion of the damage that's been done? I have no idea of the legal structure of the sanctions but I'd assume the further putin goes, the longer and deeper sanctions will exist. Like 'taxing' Russia for damages.
What will happen I hope is that we will rebuild Ukraine as the least we can do for their sacrifice eliminating an increasingly belligerent Russia as a world superpower which they are effectively doing
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There's a joke going down here is that Russian's "operation for regime change" is going perfectly according to plan. The plan is to dig in and wait for Zelenskiy's term to run out. That's probably Russia's best bet to remove him
very glad to see you are ok and still able to post
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Sure, I'll play the bad guy here. But trillions in reparations is not going to happen, not with a nuclear super power. First of all, then there's no reason for Russia to relent or negotiate, because they'd be facing economic death. Second of all because lets say that you do put pretty much a permanent economy crushing series of reparations on Russia and Putin is deposed, what comes after him will likely be far more because the russian people will be desperate and angry. So you'll literally get a North Korea x 5000 that's either selling advanced nuclear technology, or worse.
There's a hard line that you can take that will just further destabilize that region of the world and lead to a nuclear barbaric state, and will probably just lead to a more punitive war against Ukraine. If we want that killing to end, its likely that there has to be a way out for Russia as well.
I do believe that the international courts do need to be convened but its unlikely that trial goes ahead.
On top of that one of the conditions that Russia has in ending the war is a phased ending of sanctions in exchange for a good faith ceasefire and withdrawal by Russia.
We don't want to recreate the rise of facism in Germany after WW1.
I can't say I disagree. Having such drastic demands for reparations won't work without an unconditional surrender, and that just won't happen. The world has also avoided the whole concept after the lessons learned with WWI and WWII.
I can see some reparations being agreed to in indirect ways, like favourable trade agreements and joint infrastructure projects. Ukraine won't get an amount that they truly deserve out of Russia of course.
Much of the reparations will come from Europe and NATO partners who are sympathetic to Ukraine through investment. I hope the peace agreement includes fast tracking Ukraine to the EU which would also allow Ukrainians to work abroad and send money home as well.
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There has to be a long-term penalty for Putin, and not just reversion the prior situation, for them to have a disincentive from pulling this crap again. Including reparations as a condition for lifting sanctions is likely the most gentle way to achieve that.
MOD map updates for the day. Russia's Southern MD grouping solidifies yesterday's encirclement of Mariupol today amid their demands for the city to evacuate the city's 130K remaining civilians to surrender by 5AM before they advance into the city. In the east Russian forces have expanded their area of control westward north of Luhansk. https://twitter.com/user/status/1505498948177432576 https://twitter.com/user/status/1505658542082117637
One wonders what Churchill would have been able to do in the age of social media with a halfway decent production budget. Probably still a drunk, but a compelling one none the less.
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"You know, that's kinda why I came here, to show that I don't suck that much" ~ Devin Cooley, Professional Goaltender
Before war, her opinion wasn't that far off. Russian's "lack of freedom" was quite exaggerated and overall quality of life significantly underplayed. My cousin was born in New York and my wife spend more than a year in USA and we have seriously considered immigration so we gathered a lot of info and I have visited some countries, including Canada, to see it firsthand. So, I have a bit of an idea about English-speaking world and I confident that before war Moscow was a very good city to live in and Russia was nowhere near a totalitarian caricature state some western media made it out to be. Now of course this horrible awful war has changed everything. But that woman probably didn't pay much attention to the war itself, so she is still living in the past a bit.
I also think people in the West tend to misjudge the trajectory of the standard of living in Russia over time. I think people seem to assume that it was low and stagnant at the end of the Soviet Union and then rose in the '90s with the introduction of capitalism. When in fact, it was the opposite. GDP per capita cratered starting in 1990, dropping by about half by 1998 (in terms of constant dollars) and took until 2007 to hit its 1989 level. Since its 1998 nadir (roughly when Putin came to power), GDP per capita has more than doubled. And this showed up in terms of health, as male life expectancy in Russia dropped into the 50s in the mid-'90s. People really underestimate the absolute catastrophe that was 1990s Russia and how that has shaped what has happened since (and solidified Putin's popularity). The rapid privatization and liberalization of the Russian economy by Yelstin (and his Western advisers) is what created the oligarchy.
It's also important to recognize the differences between different regions. While Russia overall has a fairly low level of wealth/income, there are big differences throughout the country. The GDP per capita (adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity) for residents of Moscow is roughly on par with Western European countries, whereas in Smolensk it's on par with Jamaica or Iran.
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One wonders what Churchill would have been able to do in the age of social media with a halfway decent production budget. Probably still a drunk, but a compelling one none the less.
Here’s an approximation of what Churchill’s daily routine during the war would look like on social media.
Spoiler!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
Okay so this is unconfirmed stuff from a pretty random source on Facebook, so keep your sceptic hat on before consuming.
It does however sound extremely plausible and passes my personal smell test for "doesn't sound made up", and it does explain some publicly known things which have no explanation so far, so I'm going to share it despite those massive caveats.
TL,DR:
FSB in Ukraine had for years pocketed billions in bribe money meant to buy support for Kremlin within Ukraine, support that was supposed to be instrumental in the attack, and when informed that an attack was actually happening, leaked all of Russia's plans to the west with the hope that it would stop the invasion.
Or in other words, yet another example of just how badly corruption has actually destroyed Russia's ability to do stuff.
Quote:
Almost all of this story was first posted in The Times in London. The part about the bribes hasn't been confirmed yet which makes some of this post speculation. However this very learned conjecture makes perfect sense. This is one of those 'stop what you are doing and read this now' posts.
I am going to tell you a story which explains how and why Vladimir Putin (and the Russian military) so horribly misjudged the Ukrainian war, a war, the outcome of which, will change the future of our planet Earth.
It is well known that Sergey Beseda, head of the FSB 5th-Branch (Ukraine portfolio), has been arrested, along with his deputy, Anatoly Bolyukh. (The FSB is basically the former KGB.) (Beseda is a very high-ranking spy, his rank the equivalent of a U.S. 4-star general, Bolyukh a 3-star.)
It is also known that Beseda and Bolyukh were arrested for something that at first glance seems rather strange--embezzlement from the state. Publicly unknown, but interesting indeed is, the whole of the FSB 5th-Branch is under criminal investigation and many are under arrest for...embezzlement from the state.
Unknown to most is that for years Vladimir Putin has been placing billions of dollars into the 5th-Branch budget for the express and sole purpose of bribing Ukrainian officials, that is, military officers, Ukrainian secret service officers, Ukrainian internal security officers, and politicians. After Yanukovych was ejected in 2014, Putin got serious about bringing Ukraine back into the fold.
Here is the fun part. I am told by people I know (who are still in the game) that for years Sergey Beseda and Anatoly Bolyukh have been embezzling every dime of the bribe budget--literally billions of dollars. And everyone in the 5th-Branch was getting a piece of the action, all the way down to the field operatives who were supposed to be doing all the bribing. It was the perfect crime, spy bribes are paid in cash, and nobody, not even Vladimir Putin was crazy enough to invade Ukraine so nobody in the FSB was ever going to try to collect on the bribes that were never paid.
And this went on for years--since at least 2014.
Until, late last year.
Sometime in the October-November 2021 time-frame, Vladimir Putin called a meeting with a select few people, including Beseda and Bolyukh, and told them that Russia was going to invade Ukraine.
To have seen the look on the faces of Beseda and Bolyukh, because once again, none of the preparatory Ukrainian bribes had ever been paid. Putin had been given reports saying they had been paid, but in reality, not a penny had ever been spent on bribing--Ukrainians.
And as the story goes, Vladimir Putin was depending on--actually counting on--all these bribes having been paid. Because during the meeting, Putin discounted any resistance from Ukraine, saying all he had to do was kick on the door and the whole country would fall--in two days--because for years the FSB 5th-Branch had been doing such a good job at bribing Ukrainians.
I shi* you not.
The Russian army and air force signed off on the plan, with the assurance that the Ukrainian military was bribed and would not fight. The plan even included sending Russian police officers in the first wave of attack (to direct and control traffic in Kyiv) because according to the FSB 5th-Branch there was not going to be any resistance.
Beseda and Bolyukh (indeed the whole of the FSB 5th-Branch) now had a problem. A very big problem indeed.
What do spies do when they have a problem (that they want to keep secret from the boss) and they can`t solve all by themselves? They go talk to other spies and ask if they will help them solve their problem. And that is exactly what Sergey Beseda and Anatoly Bolyukh did.
It is well known that US intelligence (CIA) had very fine-grained, exact, precise, perfect, word-for-word intelligence on Putin`s invasion plans very early on in the game. Yep. You guessed it.
The perfect way to keep the secret about the whole FSB embezzlement scheme was to make certain there was no invasion. And the best way to make sure there was no invasion was to tell the CIA that there was going to be an invasion. And that is exactly what happened. Sergey Beseda and Anatoly Bolyukh gave it up. All of it. And kept giving it up, hoping beyond hope that once the secret was out, Vladimir Putin would call the Ukrainian invasion off.
And this is why President Biden (the CIA and MI-6) had months of advance warning and a crystal clear view into Putin`s invasion plans, the FSB 5th-Branch, almost everybody in the 5th-Branch was mainlining intelligence into CIA/MI-6 in a vain attempt to save their lives.
Sergey Beseda and Anatoly Bolyukh?
Yeah, you won`t be seeing them again.
Last edited by Itse; 03-21-2022 at 07:16 AM.
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